GREG Slaughter doesn’t see the PBA Commissioner’s Cup finals ending up as a series of blowouts.
He’s bracing for a tougher battle ahead between Barangay Ginebra and San Miguel beginning in Sunday’s Game Five at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
“It’s just being kind of a bipolar series with blowout after blowout,” said the 7-foot center after the Kings leveled the best-of-seven title series at 2-2 on following a 130-100 pounding of the defending champions.
“I’m pretty sure that close game down the wire is coming soon,” he added. “These blowouts are in the past and now it’s a best-of-three series.”
Of course, Slaughter doesn’t mind Ginebra winning by a mile anew, although with the finals now down to a race to-two affair, he expects both teams to figure in a grind-out showdown.
“If we can win by blowout, yeah I’ll take that again,” a smiling Slaughter said. “But we’re not counting on that.”
The 30-year-old Slaughter played a huge part for the Kings to claim Game Four as he played his best game in the series, emerging as the top local scorer with 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting and added eight rebounds.
He had 11 of his total output in the first quarter as he and Best Import Justine Brownlee spearheaded a fiery Ginebra start to set the tempo of yet another lopsided game.
“Our shots were falling, we were executing , playing D, and the effort was there. That start was what let us ultimately win the game,” said the big man out of Ateneo and University of Visayas.
Joe Devance and LA Tenorio also did their share offensively with 18 and 17 points, respectively, to complement the game-high 37 points of Brownlee.
Slaughter said the Kings need everyone to contribute if they are to dethrone the three-time All-Filipino champions.
“They’re the champions. They won 6-out-6 championships the past few years, they’re just really a tough team,” he stressed. “We got to be always playing our one hundred percent.”
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